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Abstract: Marine ecosystems hold a variety of challenges for conservation and fisheries management including predicting regime shifts and understanding marine protected areas (MPAs). For the former, many ecosystems can exist in alternate regimes, and bifurcations occur when changes in an environmental control parameter causes an ecosystem to shift from one regime to another. Since alternate regimes can have unique economic and ecological consequences, there has been considerable interest in anticipating regime shifts, which has led to the development of early warning signals (EWS) to predict impending bifurcations. I propose an EWS using Gaussian process - empirical dynamic modeling (GP-EDM) that includes information about the control parameter. For the latter challenge, from a fisheries perspective, MPAs are beneficial if the fished species being protected in a reserve or a reserve network persists and grows. I propose examining stochastic dispersal in MPA networks to understand when the species will persist in uncertain environments. Both of the methods proposed to examine challenges in marine environments will enhance our understanding of marine ecosystems.

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